


Ned Stark's Last Wish, or The Sum Total of Horror

by MSW_Skule



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Dragons, Gen, Magic, Old Gods, Reality Bending, The Old Gods (ASoIaF)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:15:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28427640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MSW_Skule/pseuds/MSW_Skule
Summary: Ned stark is beheaded on the steps of the Sept of Bealor, and finds himself not dead.
Relationships: Catelyn Stark/Ned Stark
Kudos: 16





	Ned Stark's Last Wish, or The Sum Total of Horror

Disclaimer: none of the characters or places here in are mine, and nothing I write on this site is being used for monetary gain. Please give the actual series a read if you can, it really is quite good.

**"You invoked a great many names in your last moment, Lord Stark."**

The voice echoes against his bones, brackets his ears, wakes his mind to tales half-remembed, horror stories of times before. His body was cold, colder than any memory of his youth. His eyes creaked open, slowly he pulled himself away from the impossibly black stone floor. Lines etched in the stone led to- Pressure mounted in his skull.

**"Names have a terrible power."**

Something not unlike a woman sat upon an outcropping of rock. That-Which-Was-NOTAWOMAN smiled. Too many teeth. So many sharp teeth. So wide a maw, it might devour the whole of what is. The moment passed so that what sat was not unlike a woman. 

**"Do take care, Lord Eddard Stark."**

_Light_

Heat, sand, and sun. The tower of joy at his back, and a head full of memories of another life. "A life I failed in every way," He could not help but think. Howland had ridden to the nearest township to obtain crates and a cart to haul their dead north. It had taken Ned the better part of a sennight to prepare for the journey to Kingslanding, between parsing his old and new memories and attending to the dead. 

The journey to the capital passed much the same as it had the first time, with whispered conversation even during heavy downpours. 

In their delay, Jon had already run off to Dorne trying to placate the Martell's, and so would not be in the Red Keep to stop his former wards from digressing into a literal fist fight over the death and rape of Ellia and death of her children. 

Also because of the delay, Stannis actually caught Viserys and Denearys, and made it back in time to physically pull The King of the Seven Kingdoms and The Warden of the North off each other. 

By the time Jon Arryn arrived back in Kingslanding it had been decided Dany would grow up as a ward of the crown and would marry Robert's firstborn son to strengthen his dynasties' rule. While Viserys would be fostered under now-Prince Stannis at Dragonstone and watched closely for any sign of madness. 

Indeed by the time Lord Stark was ready to leave he had even managed to browbeat the King into drinking less. Though that may have had more to do with the closure of having Lyanna's bones in the capital for so long a time. 

He had not once been cold since he had stepped into his younger skin, and the summer snows of Winterfell offered comfort he had not realized he had missed. This cold grounded him. The look of Cat's fury over Lyanna's boy near broke him. He would not have this secret hurt his nephew again. In his solar, long after the hour of the wolf, he told her all. 

And then she spoke of her own past life.

Robb, oh his bright, fool son, had been a king.

His family scattered and destroyed.

Her rebirth had not taken the same things from her that it had before.

His wife was whole again.

She did not know why.

She had not met the Cold Woman.

The pressure built again, she had not met the queen. 

"Winter is _come_." 

* * *

He had tried for years to remember what he had asked for, what he had lain bare to what was not. How he had unlocked the door. He could not remember. 

He ordered Moat Cailyn and Queenscrown rebuilt under direction of Benjen, along with a number of towers and moderate holdings scattered around the North.

When Robb and Jon were nine, the King called his banners to put down the rebellious Greyjoys.

He returned to his son of ten, his daughter of seven, and his nephew of ten all having seemingly taken over one thing or another. Catlynn had a strip of grey hair running past her left temple. 

At twelve he sent Robb to Moat Cailyn as a new branch of the Starks. Sansa was designated heir. Jon was sent to speak with Maester Aemon and grew close to him and knowledgeable of his family. Eventually Ned installed Jon as ruler of the cleansed Dreadfort. When Brandon Stark turned eight Eddard called his family together to discuss the future.

Robb had imperfect memories of his future, and morbidly thought it might have to do with the way his direwolf and he had been joined after death. The wolf's blood ran strong in him now more than ever, as he learned he was the youngest of the Starks besides Rickon. Grey and gold ran his banners, a subtle dig at a Lannister, who would never know why.

Sansa had near perfect memories of ruling the north and a good deal of political knowledge, though it was a tad out of date. She had died at the age of thirty-one, falling off her horse at the beginning of another long night.

Bran had untold knowledge of the past and understanding of the old magics he could see through the trees, but little idea of who he was to become. He had perished with the taste of almonds on his tongue, in a cave under an ancient Weirwood. There was a touch of wonder to his eye.

Jon knew his enemies and how to lead men. His sword arm was keen, but in the Red God's touch he had thrown what he knew away for a new life, and now sat in his third, he refused to sulk or brood. Amusement quaked the halls of the Greenfort, under banners of a laughing tree.

Arya filled in the gaps between each of the other's stories and made it all cohesive. It became clear quickly, they did not all live the same lives. Events, beasts, religions and even people proved to be a worrisome amount of variance over three, (now four) separate timelines.

* * *

All of his children bear witness to the execution of the deserter of the Night's Watch. The Direwolf is found sans antler. "It froze to death," there is fear in Robb's voice. The Direwolf pups are collected as they had been before. 

Jon Arryn still dies to poison, though two years later than in their first lives. Robert proclaims Stannis the Hand of the King, and does not come north.

Rickon is not Rickon. The child names his wolf cù dubh.

Maester Luwin totes the increases in crops after giving the six year old a few hours of his time over the course of six moons. The child seems to know more about plants and wood and herbs and metals than should be available for perusal in the library of Winterfell. In fact he _does_. It takes Jon, Ned, Bran and Maester Luwin two moons of picking through various tomes before realizing roughly half of what Luwin has tested and found true has no precedent. It is as though Rickon has an entire reality worth of knowledge that no one else has. 

It takes another three moons before Rickon tells him everything. It horrifies him.

It is no great matter for Lord Stark to raise another's child. Even one from another universe. But Rickon is no child. None of his children will stand to be coddled, so he makes use of them. 

The North experiences a period of growth between Ned's return and Rickon's fourteenth nameday that is unrivaled in the history of the Seven Kingdoms. A revolution of industry, his youngest says. None of his other children recognize most of what Rickon creates, and he wonders if this is right. If this will not turn the world off kilter.

It does.

And yet, the enemy does not wake.

* * *

By the time Rickon has turned eighteen, Eddard Stark's hair is full grey, he, and Cat have abdicated in favor of assisting Sansa in the day to day running of the household, and watching their children grow into their own.

Green men are walking the North. Prophecy abounds.

A song is played, and the war begins.

Ned had not thought to be bothered with the south after Stannis had been named Hand. After Robert's death trying to retake the stepstones, Cercei's second son was deemed true born, and he and Danearys were married and assassinated within two moons. 

A cold civil war, Tywin's gold, Stannis' fervor.

All letters sent to Winterfell led to naught.

The North had bowed to the threat of dragons and naught else, And the Starks had the dragons.

Jon returned from a second great ranging, the whole of the True North they were to map.

They had.

The fortress of the Long Night had been cracked open, akin to an egg. The ancient Stark was withered bones bleached white from cold and light. And not even a spark of un-life to him. 

They returned after copious documentation. The "films" showed the truth to all and sundry, the great old enemy was no more.

None of the Starks knew what to think of that. True North was half again the size of the North, with the constant mists and storms subsided it had become a fertile, if still rather cold, land. The Night's Watch became a fighting liaison between the North and the Free Folk(who had greatly profited from the growth of the North), taking neither side and remembering their true ancient enemy.

When the Hightower crumbled into the sea, and a Felbeast, belching a foul violet smog, made itself known to Westeroes they sacrificed a dragon to kill it, allowing Viserys one glimpse of glory, before locking the carcass and Viserys' corpse away in the ruins of Highgarden.

When Lysa, in her great paranoia, had the knights of the Vale ransack an ancient Monastery housing a Terrible Storm made Flesh they lost another dragon over the sky of Storm's End.

And no Starks died. 

Seasons sped and gasped in mere moons.

Winterfell never lost their last dragon, not to the Horror under Harrenhal, nor to the Hellbeast of the Fingers, nor to the Kraken of the depths.

The Great Green Dragon of the North put fire to the Terrible Army of Ghis, routed all pretenders to the throne and rested, content with Jon as High King.

The whole of Weteroes is swallowed in progress.

Before Ned turns sixty, (still Hale and hearty, able to fight and swing Ice even now) he sees entire cities climb higher than even Harrenhal.

By the time he is eighty, (still strong in the arm and mind) he begins to suspect something is horribly terribly wrong.

Not one of his family has children.

Heirships are doled out, rights are written, and a legacy sits in place.

And still none of them has died.

The year Ned turns ninety-eight The Children of the Forest return. The Army of the Court of Summer, these Fae call themselves. With light and heat and wind they bring ruin to the realm of Humes, and with Ice and Claw And Fire they are repelled.

Summer fades to memory, spring turns to autumn, to winter to spring.

Eddard Stark had not expected to live through an age of revolution and information. Old Ned Stark had not expected to see that same age fall to ruin and heat and politics. He did not expect to make it to one hundred and Seventeen namedays. His right hand ached in its absence. The only mar to his otherwise remarkably healthy body. For all his bodies' strength, he was beginning to look his age.

Why?

Those great cities, built in the image of his youngest, stood in ruins. The people feared damnation. Enraged, Rickon had fled to the Shadow under Asshai, and with him went his fervor for progress. 

Eddard Stark thinks of Cat, dead near forty years, and Theon dead near sixty, how they might have thought of this madness, and dies.

* * *

The world stills. The Shadow shifts. 

There is a flash, and a great _pull_. 

There is stone, black and cold.

And he watches himself make a deal.

"They will not be as you remember-"

"I do not care! My children need not die for the whims of a mad man"!, The impertinence of his own actions lost on his past self, not understanding the scope, the breadth of what was in front-

 **No**

It _Was_ this place.

And he felt it smile.

And he _knew_ , he knew only what this thing told him, and it would not bargain fairly with a being that lacked knowledge, "oh Rickon, my son, you have saved me".

And the thing stilled, as his past self left. The tear in reality itself folding together with not but a scar.

He did not perceive that cold thing as he may once have, womanly and impossibly frightening. 

He did not see it as it wasn't.

His senses did not away his hand.

He felt and _refused_ it.

His understanding crystalized and he _speared_ it forward with all the will and force and pain and joy of humanity.

And reality, his pact with this being and all of history, broke. That which had been and was no longer fell. 

And he fell with it.

* * *

Horror broke through his conviction long enough for him to question, "What next?" And he was met with darkness, and light, and rushing ground.

The stillness was more jarring than the impact. As though he had been adrift and falling long enough his body had forgotten stillness itself. 

He retched, and turned onto his side. He spat and his voice cracked as he groaned. How long has he been screaming?

His eyes caught light off behind a great shadowed tree, limbs covered in ravens. And then the tree turned and the last Lord of Winterfell knew it was a horrible bird, antlered by weirwood. 

**You killed me? How could you have killed me? All are and I am undone. I am dead, Eddard Stark.**

Black blood, half coagulated, flowes freely out of three sockets where eyes should have rested. The blood rises to his waist.

**What is dead, may never die.**

**What is dead, may never die.**

**What is dead, may never die.**

**What is dead, may never die.**

Foul, fetid blood chokes him, drowns him, crushes him.

He floats, moments? A century? Runes light round his stump of a hand, and around his neck. Bright and syrupy, red blood slips out into the black, lit by what he cannot know. And then he is rushed to shore, carried by tide and surf. He pushes his way to his feet, both hands whole, or near it. Red blood wells up from under his fingertips from the dragon glass pebbles that make up the beach. Hot blue runes wrap his former injuries. Sealing them? Healing him? 

He feels eyes, unsubtle, boring into his mind. He wenches his body towards the heat he now feels in waves, and a God sits, waiting.

**We, my brother's and I, set the stars to burning. When those things, old and horrid, came out of the dark we warred, and burned them, and took their hides and wrapped a soul in their remains. And so your world sat, and out of the dark you came.**

**Humes.**

**You and yours are a mistake, a disease, an imagining of that which is doomed to consume itself.**

It sits and judges, all. Alabaster and marble make it's right arm and head, crimson cloaks it's left, crowned in stars and light, golden and hateful.

**And so, I cracked the second satilite, and out of those chunks of angry molten moon the dragons came. They were charged with the purification of your tiny earth. And your forebears LEASHED THEM with their old gods' whispers. Drove them mad, ere your maester masters poisoned the very salvation of the cosmos.**

R'hllor. It sits, with no legs, no abdomen at the centre of its realm. The torch in it's hand burns white and arrogant. And Ned knows this bright thing will not deal with what it does not respect.

Black and red washes out, following the tide. A pale orange sickle cuts the sky, and Eddard Stark knows its hubris is his way out.

**Out? If you want out so badly, be gone.**

And the absence the fire fills in, he knows and unknows, and he arms himself, but what is cold logic, to passion and heat? He is smouldering, his soul feels like a coal in his breast, and he knows hate. The memory of cold is not driven out, and he refuses the fire. Ned opens eyes he doesn't remember closing, wipes the sweat from his brow and gasps as he coughs smoke.

**Who are you?**

This god of fire and heat peers at the old man, and Eddard understands, he is more than he was. He has power in the absence of the horrible bird. So he flees the molten shore of the Red god. He flies out into the black of night. His cloak acting as a great wing, not unlike the gliders his youngest had made for his eldest.

Ned dares not test the limits of where and what, and so seeks land as soon as the smell of sulphur leaves his nose. Ere long he spies a great rock, round covered by moss and seaweed, and so, he lands. 

He has but moments to rest, the head of a great serpent, larger than the gatehouse of Winterfell, rises from the dark water and looms, eyes like sickly yellow lamps.

**_Once, there was an old man,_ **

**_Clay and chisel_ **

**_Who went down to the greatest river that was,_ **

**_Padded feet and gravel_ **

**_And drank._ **

The voice is akin to oil, slipping into his mind, lubricating buried anxieties, and coaxing ancient fears from rusty memory.

_**Ere his thirst is quenched,** _

_**Mud and blood and bone** _

_**He is taken for a meal by the eldest turtle of the river,** _

_**Soda and Lyme and charcoal** _

_**Thus the turtle became the old man.** _

There is a bell tolling in the distance, and Ned realizes they are moving. 

_**Wizened by such an ordeal,** _

_**Straw and pulp** _

_**The old man sought to sustain himself on the plants growing along my tail,** _

_**Scale and corruption** _

_**And so I became the old man, and took his home as mine own.** _

The old man strikes and Eddard Stark grasps reality and pulls. There is no flash or blood or displaced air.

* * *

He stands before the Shadow, under Asshai. Here sits his last son, Humbled and worn. Rickon Stark, Lord of the ruins of Dragon's Point, Grand Architect of the damned cities, and former Hand of High King Jon Targaryen, first of his name, sits on a blackened rock outcropping, under a mushroom covered umbrella.

The Shadow is not smoke, or an underground city, nor a necropolis as the tales spoke. It is a black and stary fungus, growing and heaving. Taller than the Wall, pulling itself out of the earth, ever expanding, as if to cover the sky utterly. Scarlet sap, viscous and speckled, drips and up springs new growth. Black and thick, vine-like roots grasp the edges of the great crack in the earth.

"Bran told me long ago, when we were small again, that those in Asshai knew the end of things, and that no matter my strength or mental acuity, nothing could be done to forestall such things," Rickon's voice is subdued and he sounds near broken. "In my first life, I helped cage the greatest threats of my planet, men and monsters who sought to disrupt reality itself, and died proud, at an old age, doing what I thought was Right."

"This is not your world either, father of mine. The Shadowsap shows all. An entity lives in this timeline, it bends and bobs at its whim. It rescued the Spider, from his gruesome fate by way of murdering the red witch and ritually removing one of her eyes, for its own use. Varys of Valyria, rules from Mantarys, to Lys, to Pentos. A stable and prosperous rule, with many children, each born to a different mother, each born to rule a city. They take pride in their family and their position. All while his mentor watches, this thing knows you. It does not understand how you became as you are but it watches."

Eddard starts, shaking his head. 

The ring of mushrooms at his feet glow faintly.

Rickon turns to him, and his face is half mushroom, dripping crimson sap.

And he is away. And kneeling before the King.

High King of Westeros, Lord of Ten Realms, Protector of the Twelve Seas, Burner of Quarth, Last Targaryen and Breaker of Ghis, Jon Stark turns from his advisor, some second son of a third son who had fought alongside Jon against some beast or another, and frowned. His demeanor shifted entirely, "Father, I had not thought you well enough to travel," the Northman exclaimed. He had taken to dying his great black beard with bits of red, to honour his brothers, and his heritage as he seldom wore red and black.

But Ned could not answer, because he was not there.

* * *

The Tower of Joy, now a ruin, stretches into the sky before him. A buzzing he does not remember hearing fading from his ear. An unease fills him, as the Crow's Eye speakes, "Well met CrowEater!"

Eddard feels the madness waft from around Euron Greyjoy, like a miasma, tainting reality as the squid approaches. "Your ilk have given me more trouble than the damned blackguard of Valyria! But there's no more running, Stark."

The very idea of Euron Greyjoy naming anyone blackguard was almost stunning to Ned, "I'd have preferred to spear your children in front of you, make it hurt a bit afore your miserable culling, but separating you from them eternally will be satisfying enough!" 

Shadows slip from the cloak of Eddard Stark, and fall upon the Kraken with aplomb. Spearing and tearing and burning.

Euron Greyjoy falls to the ground, whole but shaken. He is not sure if he has been healed, or if it was all in his mind to begin with. Stark puts three feet of steel through the Crow's Eye's remaining eye from behind, while his opponent stands stunned, his mind wrestling with illusions. 

Euron's mind was a treacherous thing, mad and ambitious, but not foolish. Eddard dares not delve too deep, but it is easy to tell he has been moving, fighting and meeting, for near three months. 

* * *

After dumping the warlock's poison into the sands, he sits resting on the steps of the tower, the only real shade for miles.

A weirwood sapling grows in the middle of the courtyard. "I suppose I should speak to Bran and his little mages troupe," he says to no one, as the old gods are dead. "Maybe he'll know what to do." 

He turns North, and takes to the skys.

Authors note: Not sure if I'll continue this story, it just wouldn't leave me alone until I posted it. The timelines are all blown out of place, reality is plainly the whim of various godlike beings; ancient and new, of Alien and earthen natures. The setting by the end is half mad Max, half dystopian hyper fantasy and half medieval surfs raging about boiling their water. Fun stuff. Feel free to use any ideas you like. 


End file.
